Friday from the Oval Office at the White House after meeting with conservative GOP lawmakers, President Donald Trump declared Obamacare “dead.” During those remarks, Trump took several shots at the media, who he said were trying to defend Obamacare. “We are doing some incredible things,” Trump said. “I want everyone to know 100 percent behind this. I want everybody to know that the press has not been speaking properly about how great this is going to be. They have not been giving it a fair press. The press is — well in many cases, as you know, I call it the fake news. It’s fake news. This is going to be great for people. “I also want people to know that Obamacare is dead,” Trump said. “It’s a dead health care plan. It’s not even a health care plan, frankly.” “Only because everyone knows it’s on its last dying feet, the fake news is trying to say good things about it — the fake media,” he added. “There is no good news about Obamacare. Obamacare is dead.” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
Author: Jeff Poor
Dem Rep Moulton Warns of Possible Nuclear War With Russia
Friday on CNN’s “New Day,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, doubled down on remarks he had made earlier in the week in Austin, TX at the South by Southwest music festival regarding the possibility of a U.S. nuclear war with Russia. Moulton argued Russia had violated the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty and criticized President Donald Trump for not acting more forcefully against Russia for the violation. That he said raised the possibility of nuclear war with Russia should Russia use nuclear weapons against U.S. allies in Europe. “Russia has not only violated this treaty, they have also changed their doctrine,” Moulton said. “For a long time, Russia and the United States had this sort of mutual agreement, mutually assured destruction, that if they shot their weapons at us, we’d shoot our weapons at them and therefore a nuclear war was unlikely to happen. But what Russia now says is that they will quote, ‘escalate to deescalate.’ They are willing to use nuclear weapons to deescalate a conventional attack.” “And I think that the problem here is that we don’t really have a plan to deal with that,” he continued. “If Russia starts using nukes
Hannity Rips NBC For ‘Corporate Jihad Against President Donald Trump’
Wednesday for his show’s “Opening Monologue,” Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity took aim at NBC News a day after Rachel Maddow, host of MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” released President Donald Trump’s 2005 taxes. Hannity categorized Maddow’s effort as being part of what he called “the alt-left propaganda media” and offered other examples in addition to Maddow of attacks on Trump. Partial transcript as follows: NBC’s corporate jihad against President Donald Trump continues. Plus, a new report from Circa News shows the investigation into a server connected to Donald Trump was, in fact, a politically motivated hit job pushed by a big-time Hillary Clinton donor. By the way, that’s tonight’s “Opening Monologue.” All right, NBC has now hit a new low by releasing the president’s tax returns, or a small portion of them, last night. But what we’re seeing from the alt left propaganda destroy Donald Trump media — it’s not new. Now that Donald Trump occupies the Oval Office, the opposition party press is going to new extremes and lows to try and take down his presidency, and they won’t stop until he’s out of office. Now, I’ve been saying since 2008 right here on this program journalism
Rand Paul Fires Back at John McCain: ‘Past His Prime,’ ‘A Little Bit Unhinged’
Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) reacted to comments from his colleague Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) a day earlier on the Senate floor accusing him of being an agent for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Paul had objected to a unanimous consent motion for legislation to advance Montenegro’s bid to join NATO, to which McCain had attacked Paul. In his “Morning Joe” appearance, Paul ripped McCain as being “past his prime” and “unhinged,” and then went on to argue questions about NATO deserved more consideration. You know, I think he makes a really, really strong case for term limits. I think maybe he’s past his prime; I think maybe he’s gotten a little bit unhinged. I do think that when we talk about NATO, there can be a rational discussion about the pros and cons of expanding it. We currently have troops, combat troops, in about six nations. We have troops actively just stationed in probably a couple dozen others. We have a $20 trillion debt. And one of my favorite articles of the last couple years is one that talked about the angry McCains, and if they — if we put active troops and got involved in combat
GOP Sen Inhofe: EPA ‘Brainwashing Our Kids’ With Propaganda
Thursday on CNN’s “New Day,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) reacted to an item from President Donald Trump’s proposed budget, which will cut the Environmental Protection Agency from $8.1 billion to $5.7 billion, or roughly 31 percent. Inhofe said while some of the efforts of EPA were needed, he criticized one of its functions that he called “brainwashing our kids.” “We want to deliver the services,” Inhofe said. “We ought to make things clean, but we ought to take all this stuff that comes out of the EPA that’s brainwashing our kids, that is propaganda, things that aren’t true, allegations.” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
Hannity to Trump: Purge Obama Holdover ‘Saboteurs’ Before It’s Too Late
Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” host Sean Hannity urged the Trump administration to “purge” the holdovers from the prior Obama administration. Hannity described them as saboteurs and warned they were”hell-bent” on destroying Trump’s presidency. Transcript as follows: [F]or weeks, we’ve been warning you about the deep state Obama holdover government bureaucrats who are hell-bent on destroying this president, President Trump. Tonight, it’s time for the Trump administration to begin to purge these saboteurs before it’s too late. That’s tonight’s “Opening Monologue.” Let’s go back to 1861. President Abraham Lincoln — he created, you know, a team of rivals, a so-called team of rivals, a cabinet of rivals, including adversaries that he ran against in the Republican primary. But while president Lincoln sought to unify his party through cabinet selections, he also executed an extensive government purge. He fired over 75 percent, nearly 1,200 people out of 1,500 bureaucrats that worked in the executive branch who President Lincoln feared could be disloyal. It’s time now for President Trump to follow Abraham Lincoln’s example and a fire anyone and everyone who is actively working against him in government. After all, even former president Bill Clinton — he utilized this tactic back in 1993.
GOP Rep Steve King on Health Care Bill: ‘We Should Have Had More Time to Digest It’
Thursday on CNN’s “New Day,” Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said he would have liked to have seen more time given to lawmakers and the public to “digest” the proposed legislation to replace the 2010 Affordable Care. “[T]he White House and the leadership has had a discussion about how they want the timing of this to work and so they rolled this bill out,” King said. “And we should have had more time to digest it. I’d rather seen it out there for a week or 10 days before they go to committee to mark it up. It really isn’t much time for anybody to bring amendments and try to make the change.” “And we don’t get amendments passed unless we get public support for that,” he continued. “And it takes time for the organizations from outside to weigh in. I just would like to see more time. This is the agenda we have, and leadership wants to build momentum. I would be at this point — if I were leadership, I wouldn’t back up, but I would have given them a little more time in the beginning.” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
GOP Sen Collins: House Healthcare Bill ‘Dead on Arrival’ in Senate
Wednesday in an interview with Yahoo News’ Katie Couric, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said there was little hope in the U.S. Senate for the House GOP healthcare bill should it make its way out of the House. “I’m still looking at the bill, but I have a lot of concerns about it,” Collins said. “For example, some initial analysis suggests that as many as 6-10 million people could lose their health insurance. And for seniors, who make a disproportionate amount of the population in Maine, it would mean substantial premium increases that would not be covered by the increase credit. So those are two concerns that I have.” After laying out some more problems she had with the legislation, she said she agreed with Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) assertion the bill would be dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate, but not for the same reasons as Paul. “I do not think it would be well received in the Senate,” she said. “But I do want to emphasize that it’s still a work in progress. The House committees are going to be working their will on the bill and it has to go before the full House before it comes
Gohmert on GOP Replacement Bill: ‘As It Is, It Is Still Going to Be Quite Costly’
Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Happening Now,” Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) warned against the legislation House Republicans are pushing to replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Gohmert explained there were some things they could do to win over his and other House conservatives’ support, but he said the current bill did not go far enough in lowering costs. “[W]e haven’t had those that are pushing this bill actually realize they need our support,” Gohmert said. “They can get our support, but we need to be at least as bold as we were in 2015. And as I mentioned to President Trump when he was on the House floor during the State of the Union, you are being told there are some things we can’t do under reconciliation that we have already done. And so anyway, it seems like the Byrd rule, or the KKK rule — whatever they call it down in the Senate, it seems more like that is a rule that lets them say we can’t do that because the Byrd rule or whatever. There are a lot of things we can do, and the presiding officer makes that call. But if we don’t get there more important
GOP Rep Meadows: House GOP Healthcare Bill Doesn’t Create Competition, Won’t Lower Costs
Wednesday on CNN’s “New Day,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, criticized the current Republican proposal that has been presented to replace the Affordable Care Act. When asked what specifically he did not like about the GOP effort by “New Day” co-host Alisyn Camerota, Meadows said the bill would not create competition, which would drive down costs of health care. “[O]ne is that it creates a new entitlement, perhaps the first major entitlement, the largest major entitlement under a Republican president if Donald Trump signed this in,” Meadows explained. “The other thing is and the fundamental question — we’re going to have all kinds of different scores: CBO scores, joint tax scores. The only score that really matters is will it bring down health insurance premiums? This bill doesn’t do it. It doesn’t really create competition. It allows the government to come in and really prop up the insurance companies and it won’t drive down costs. That’s what we have to do. That’s my major objection.” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor